Without Him
by SapphireOceans
Summary: She sits and waits, watching the hands of the clock go around and around. She waits for him to come home. But he never does. Jennie/Mathew. Song: Sophia by Nerina Pallot


**Jennie/Mathew**

**Song: Sophia by Nerina Pallot. (And it's a beautiful song guys, so check it out sometime.)**

**I do not own Ingo (Sadly). Ingo belongs to the wonderful Helen Dunmore.**

**I also do not own the lyrics used. There lyrics belong to Nerina Pallot, not me.**

**Thank you for reading.**

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**Sophia**

_5 O'Clock and the fire escape symphony,_

_Spreading out across the road the road and the square,_

She watches the clock, sitting in the old kitchen chair with the woven wicker seat which is nearly nothing but a giant hole. The hands travel around so slowly; _tick, tick, tick_. She watches the second's hand goes around, completing each circuit with the result of the minute's hand moving a notch. The minutes slowly turn into hours, which make no sense to her. Why has it been hours? Why is he not home? The flashing lights on the cars outside shine through the frosted glass in the door, distorted into flickering rays of blue. She waits for the door to open, for him to walk back through. But the hours turn into days, and still he has not come.

_When the sky's the same as your own do you think of me?_

_Do the parks and tree and the leaves reach you there?_

She wonders if he's still there, under the same sky, the sky stretching away from where she stands at the window, or if he's lying under the cold water, his body resting on the hard sand, with only a rippling surface above instead of the blue sky dotted with clouds; the only thing that she feels connects him to her. Or if he's somewhere else, London, Scotland, Manchester with someone else; someone who's not her.

_After the rain,_

_In the lonely hours he haunts me,_

_Calling out again and again._

Every night she lies in bed, watching the rain patter down on the garden through her half closed curtains, listening to it drumming on the roof, and she feels so lonely she thinks she might die. Because she's alone in the cold bed, which suddenly seems too big for her. Alone without his warm arms around her, holding her tight and the familiar rhythm of his slow, heavy breathing. And she feels her heart ache, and yearn for him, wishing she could call out through the darkness, scream his name. But she remains silent.

_Sophia, Sophia I'm burning, I'm burning,_

_It's a fire, a fire I cannot put out,_

There's a place in her chest which aches for him terribly; it feels like someone has stabbed her in the heart with a red hot knife. The place burns, and aches all day long, and there's nothing she can do to heal it; she's been torn open and the wound is too deep to heal. She yearns for his voice, the secret things he would whisper in her ear as they lay there together each night, watching the stars through the curtains. He would tell her the names of the stars and the stories behind them, and she would fall asleep to the sound of his voice.

_Sophia, Sophia I'm learning that something's I can't go without,_

_And one of them is him._

For a moment, the memory of him is so strong it's as if he's there, but the moment she turns, reaching out a hand for him, he's gone and she's alone once more. And she lies there, watching the stars disappear one by one, watching the sky turn pink in the soft morning light, watches the sun rise. And too soon, she hears them stirring, and she has to heave herself out of bed, shower, dress, brush her hair, all the mundane tasks, she has to do them to stay strong for them, for the only one's she has left, when all she wants to do is crawl back into bed and lie there, dreaming of him.

_And now I walk these streets like a stranger in my home town,_

_Learn the language, form the words when I speak,_

But she resists and she manages to get through each day, to go to the shops, go to work, go to church, but it's all an effort. She smiles and chat's with the neighbours, never letting the pain and despair show. She runs on automatic, never thinking, just letting herself react to whatever's said. She cooks for the kids in the mornings, she works hard at work, never letting herself pause, never letting herself think. But at night there's nothing to distract her and she can't help but remember.

_But he changed me I'm his ghost since he came around,_

_Now I count the hours and the day in the week,_

She doesn't feel like she's real- she feels like a spirit, a phantom, drifting around the town. Everywhere she goes reminds her of him- the church where his memorial service was held, the pub where he used to sing, the cliffs he used to climb down to reach the cove. Even her own daughter; she has his dark eyes, his dark hair, his wild temper. Sometimes she can barely look at her for remembering. It hurts too much. But she can't let that show. So she keeps going like clockwork, and the seconds turn to minutes, the minutes turn to hours, the hours turn to days, the days turn to weeks and the weeks turn to months.

_Passion and silence,_

_Every word, every line, I measure,_

_It's the science of the soul,_

But no matter how much time passes, her bed never gets any less empty; the house never gets any less silent when the kids are at school. She does all the chores, and tries to invent more to fill up the empty days, but soon runs out, and she has to resort to flicking distractedly through books, watching random section on T.V. But sooner or later something will remind her of him and the memories will come flooding back.

_And his books they breathe a reason,_

_And now, I want to know._

One day she couldn't resist any longer and went to his desk, flipping through his books and his papers which she had left untouched for so long, searching for something, anything, some clue as to where or why he went. But what she found showed nothing; a couple of books, some scribbled notes on local legends, an atlas with doodles of mermaids down the side.

_Sophia, Sophia I'm burning, I'm burning,_

_It's a fire, a fire I cannot put out,_

She had put everything back, disappointment raging in her chest, and she had hurried away, almost as if she was a naughty school girl, afraid of getting caught doing something she couldn't. She had spun the globe on the way out, and its familiar rumble had almost made her weep. He had done that, when he was thinking, spun the globe round and round, absentmindedly with his fingertips.

_Sophia, Sophia I'm learning that something's I can't go without,_

_And one of them is him._

Then the children were home, and she was 'Mum' again, bustling around, cooking meals, helping with homework, washing up. And then, too soon, it was dark again, night falling. And then they were in bed, and she was alone again, alone in the darkness, asking herself again, for the hundredth time, how she was still going, why she hadn't fallen apart yet.

_And you with your new born eyes,_

_Have you ever loved a man, like I love him?_

One day it had all just got too much. She'd had the day off and had stayed at home, her hands aching with idleness. It had suddenly hit her, like a brass paperweight falling from a shelf onto her head. _I'm never going to hear him laugh again_. Then the tears had come, making her body shake, and tightening her throat, so all she could make were weird gasping noises of pain, as she felt her heart rip inside her chest. All her friends had pretended to understand how she felt; had patted her back at the funeral, tell her they knew what she was going through, but how could they? How could anybody understand this pain? How could anybody love like this?

_Do you hurt, but still feel alive?_

_Like never before, oh Sophia?_

She had ended up curled on the floor in a foetal position, her knees touching her head while the sobs has torn through her, making her body jerk. Her eyes had hurt with the amount of tears she had shed, but still they trickled down her face, landing in her hair, making dark splotches on it. She hurt so much she wished, for the first time that she was dead too, so she could be with him, and so this pain would end. And then she realised she couldn't leave the children. More sobs came, and she screamed his name, out into the silence.

_Sophia?_

"Mathew!"

_Sophia, Sophia I'm burning, I'm burning,_

_It's a fire, a fire I cannot put out,_

Her sobs had calmed after a while, and she had clambered to her feet and washed her face, so that when her children came home they would never know. But inside she was still screaming his name, begging for him to answer.

_Sophia, Sophia I'm learning that something's I can't go without,_

Because no matter how hard she pretended, she was broken, and she couldn't be fixed. Not by anyone except him. Without thinking she had suddenly run from the house to the top of the cove, standing on the cliff and screaming his name out to sea, to the blue waters crashing on the rocks below. She had screamed and screamed for him, her voice whipped away by the winds, until it had grown too cold and she had had to return inside, to wait for their children. For his children.

She kept her thoughts elsewhere for the rest of the day, managing to ignore the name which still seemed to ring in her ears. But as the sky turned from blue, to purple to black, and the clock ticked onwards, she found herself once more alone in the cold bed. And the one though which she had been struggling to contain the whole day burst through her lips in a broken whisper.

"_I can't go without him._"

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**Thank you for reading. Please review.**


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